The Unbearable Burden of Being Buxom (A Magical Girl Story)

[JimmyFingus]

Spoiler: Important Note

Not porn, but definitely a lot of bust. Sorry to get anyone's hopes up!

A Long Day I

September 4, 2008

Intro to Composition

'Man, wouldn't it be awesome to pick a bunch of late classes and be able to sleep in everyday?'

When Eleanor picked her classes for her first semester at Costello State, she remembered thinking something pretty much exactly like that. After a life defined by having to be on the road by 7:40 every morning just to get to where she needed to be on time (for twelve years to school, then one extra to McDonalds), the thought of getting to sleep in until ten (or later!) on weekdays felt almost sinful. But that was one sin that she didn't mind dabbling in, because… well. Duh. Sleeping in!

Sadly, the machinery of the university system (or possibly her overworked orientation advisor) had other plans, and when she finally got her schedule, she saw that she had two 'early' days. Tuesday and Thursday, First Year Composition at nine AM.

It was still better than her year at Micky D's, and since she was in the dorms, she was going to be able to sleep longer than she ever did in high school and still get to her classes on time. Not quite as good as she'd been dreaming about, but not too shabby either.

All of which was cold comfort to her on the morning of her first day of classes, when she rolled over in bed and saw 8:50 shining brightly in green on her dad's old alarm clock.

Luckily her new roommate was already long gone, so she could bumble around their shared room and tear apart her suitcases with reckless abandon. In her frenzy, she only managed to find her second and third choices for any one piece of clothing apart from her trusty purple and black zip-up hoodie, which her past self had helpfully stashed across the still-empty dirty clothes hamper. After a brief, and nonsensical, mental war over whether it would be better to wear the Converse she'd bought over the summer or her old combat boots, she realized she was wasting time and slipped on her boots (it would take way too long to lace up her Converse). A quick eyeliner rush job later, and she was still exactly where she hated to be: late.

Because to someone with as much respect for the social contract as she had, being late only led to something even worse. Rushing.

And for Eleanor, rushing was a problem.

Backpack fastened securely over both shoulders, she exited her dorm room and all but fled down the internal hallway of the dormitory complex, hoping against hope that there wouldn't be anyone standing around to gawk. Her dorm's entrance was furthest from the exit proper, so it was a longer walk than she'd have liked, but, miraculously, she escaped down the hallway without a door flying open to smack her in the face and really make her morning memorable.

She managed to get all the way to the lobby without running into another human soul and approached the glass door to the open air campus. Then, just as she thought she'd momentarily managed to avoid the facts of her life, the door opened from the outside. Behind it was a patchily bearded dude in a a blue-and-red Obama "Yes We Can" shirt and jeans. He had the distinct air of someone who'd forgotten something and was coming back to get it.

There was a solid half second delay between him seeing her and him fully realizing what it was he was seeing. His eyes widened comically, but, to his credit, she only saw his gaze flick down once.

She debated complimenting his shirt, but instead decided on old faithful.

"Sorry," she half-mumbled as he retreated backwards and held the door open for her to come through.

"No problem," he replied as she passed him by.

Keeping her eyes steadfastly ahead of her, Eleanor kept walking and did her best to put him out of her mind. The whole campus would know about her soon enough, and maybe in a few months she'd stop getting reactions.

Maybe.

She hoped.

"Dude, holy shit," she heard someone gasp. To her right, down the stone path that led to the cafeteria were two guys. One was tall and tan, and the other short and blonde. The short blonde one was pointing at her, and the tall tan one was staring flagrantly at her chest.

Her chest.

Her boobs.

The two massive heaps of flesh that God had decided were her cross to bear. They were the curse puberty gifted her with, and they were the source of all of her woes. They were the reason why the whole school would know her, and probably even the whole dinky town.

She was "that one girl".

To be more specific, she was "that one girl with the boobs."

To those who knew her well, she was Eleanor Garcia, lover of black clothing and studded belts, amateur guitarist, frequent doodler, and part time McDonalds cashier. To everyone else, she was a pair of great big tits on too-skinny legs.

And she was late to class.

Ignoring the stares, Eleanor kept walking, taking the fastest pace she could manage while keeping her jiggle to a comfortable (and minimal) level. She had long ago learned that running was her enemy, and so she avoided it in the vast majority of cases. Not only could it be painful, but it attracted even more stares, and there was a certain point where that could become pretty much impossible to ignore.

This was going to be her year, she'd told herself. She was a grown ass woman! She'd worked a job! She was going to be the first person in her family to graduate! She wasn't some shrinking violet hiding beneath her eyeliner!

(Honest!)

One of the nice things about the campus was that apart from the paths and the immediate areas surrounding most of the buildings, most of the grounds were covered in greenery. There were a number of large trees providing shade all throughout, and even large streams and ponds criss crossing the various paths. Just outside her dorm (and on the way to the Humanities building) was one of the larger ponds. A large fountain shot water into the air, and rocks surrounded much of the shoreline. There were all kinds of ducks swimming, sleeping, and sifting through the grass for their meals. She knew there were Canadian Geese here sometimes too, but so far she'd only seen ducks, pigeons, and a few campus cats.

Sadly, as cute as the ducks could be, they also came with one of the bad things about the campus so far. Ducks, it turned out, didn't really care where they pooped. Which meant the sidewalks nearest the ponds were filled with landmines. And since she couldn't easily see her feet without twisting her torso while walking like a weirdo, it also meant she had to take extra care and look well ahead.

She didn't want to be late and track duck crap into the classroom too.

The paths themselves were fairly free of people at least, as seemingly almost everyone else was either still asleep or knew how to properly set their alarms. Ahead of her there were a few people heading in the same direction, though the paths split off at numerous points and there were a number of buildings between her dorm and the Humanities building, so it was anyone's guess if they were heading to the Humanities building or not. They were moving quickly at least, so she probably wouldn't overtake them. Which was nice!

Eleanor deftly avoided a fresh looking (and smelling) duck landmine as she approached one of the cute little bridges that littered the campus, congratulating herself silently on her dexterity as she did so. She was stepping onto the bridge with a little extra spring in her step when she heard something move in the rocks on the left side of the bridge, and that same something darted out across the path and right under her chest before she could even react. She suppressed a squeal at the shock of it and lost her balance in the process. She was close enough to the blue metal railing of the bridge that she could grab hold and catch herself, but it was a definite scare that left her temporarily breathless.

After a few moments to catch her breath, she pulled herself up straight and looked over to the right side of the bridge, trying to find whatever the hell it was that nearly made her eat shit. She couldn't see it when it passed below her, but she'd caught a glimpse of it scurrying into the rocks. She hadn't seen any fur, and she was pretty sure it was grey, but she could almost swear she saw some blue too. And not just any old blue, but, like, bright blue.

'Some kind of lizard?' she pondered as she continued walking. 'Maybe a pet? Or some kind of prank?'

Sure, she wasn't from this town, but she'd spent her whole life within 100 miles of it, and she was pretty sure she'd have heard of a bright blue lizard if they had one. They had lizards aplenty though, and all it took was one drunk asshole with a paintbrush to give an unfortunate reptile a makeover.

But even as she accepted her hypothesis as fact, she couldn't quite shake the tingle in her spine.

And no, it wasn't that kind of back pain.

The rest of her walk was far less eventful. She managed to avoid stepping in any duck poo (to her knowledge), and the people ahead of her both ended up going down paths to different destinations, so she had the sidewalk all to herself.

She crossed the quad without incident, and after passing the library, it was only another forty-five seconds at her quick-but-low-bounce pace to get to the Humanities building, otherwise known as the Oliveira-Sharp Hall (in honor of a prominent local dairyman and an almond magnate). The lobby was thankfully also clear of people, so she was able to pick up the pace a bit as she sped past the various photos and plaques that detailed the history of the building.

Eleanor was glad that she'd taken the time to figure out where all her classes were in the last few days, because at least she wasn't wandering around hopelessly lost. She was late, but she knew where she was going. Small victories.

She turned right down the white walled hallway and passed several classrooms, catching snatches of teacher introductions as she went. Finally, after another couple turns in the surprisingly spacious building, she was outside the classroom that she knew was hers. 121. Sure enough, she could hear a voice through the door.

She rubbed her elbow nervously.

Should she wait for a pause in the talking? Or was waiting longer just making her look even worse?

She'd always been so punctual in high school! Lateness to class was relatively uncharted territory for her, and she didn't want to give her teacher a bad impression of her right off the bat. Her mom had really harped on about making sure her teachers liked her because "you never know when you might need a favor".

Well, her first impression was pretty soiled regardless at this point, so there was really no reason to wait. She didn't want to miss even more than she already had and end up digging her own grave at the starting line.

Steeling herself for the stares she knew she was going to get, she adjusted her backpack straps so they cut her slightly less, pulled at hoodie wherever it clung too closely, then gripped the door handle tightly and swung it open in a clean, quiet motion.

Because she'd checked out all her classrooms beforehand, she knew that this one was a tiered setup. Each row of seating was a little higher than the one in front of it, and the professor's desk was down low so that the entire class was facing down at them and the whiteboard behind them.

Of course, both doors to the classroom that opened out to the hallway were on the professor's level. This meant that when she opened the door, what had to be over thirty pairs of eyes zeroed in on the intruder.

She was used to people's first reactions to her, by this point in her life. Bug eyes. Whispered comments. Stares of veiled disbelief and hunger in equal part. It was old hat to her, and yet, it still made her feel like she wanted to crawl somewhere dark and quiet, curl up, and die.

The professor was a light skinned black woman who couldn't even be thirty. Her curly hair was pulled up into a bun, and her sleeveless floral blouse and beige slacks gave her a professional, yet approachable air. Eleanor caught her eyes widening too, but she squashed it quickly. "There's still a seat up there," the Professor said calmly, gesturing to the second row from the back on the far side of the room.

"Sorry," Eleanor said lamely, her heart thrumming in her chest. She kept her head down as she walked in front of the professor's desk, willing herself to imagine that a whole classroom full of adults wasn't currently staring at what her hoodie failed to ever fully hide.

To make matters worse, the professor waited for her to take a seat before resuming from where she'd left off, so there was nothing even distract them while Eleanor found her seat. She felt the eyes as she walked up the three tiers with deliberate steps, then took a seat right where the professor had pointed. She had to scoot the chair a bit further back to sit comfortably, but luckily, the person next to her was a girl about her age. Not that it stopped the quick glance downward when Eleanor offered her a tentative smile.

"As I was saying," the professor continued, "the major assignments in this class will, of course, involve writing…"

Eleanor slipped her backpack off her shoulder and placed it beside her feet. Looking around below her, she could see that many of her classmates had either a laptop or a notebook out already, which made her feel like she should probably do the same. After all, it showed you took the class seriously, right?

Opting to take out her computer, she quietly unzipped her backpack and withdrew the sturdy gray laptop that she'd managed to snag on ebay. She laid it out gently and cracked it open. After briefly admiring the wallpaper she'd spent an evening finding, she opened up Microsoft Word, ready to take any notes she might need.

Which wound up being a waste of time, because everything she needed to know was on the syllabus that the professor eventually passed back to her after she laboriously explained the plagiarism policy (don't do it, or you're dead).

Eleanor's next moment of embarrassment came when the student in front of her turned around to hand her the syllabus, and Eleanor accidentally pushed her laptop almost to the point of falling off the long shared desk desk. She managed to shoot a hand out and catch it, but she also didn't miss the snort from the girl next to her.

She did her best to make minimal movements after that.

The professor methodically went down every line of the syllabus, elaborating smoothly as she went. Grade weightings, late work policies, textbooks, email addresses, Professor Summers went over it all, and by the end of it Eleanor really didn't feel like she'd missed anything too important after all.

Still, it would've been nice to sneak into the back of the classroom before anyone else had even shown up. Maybe she'd have had a few blissful class days of anonymity; she found that social situations for her were often a lot easier if no one even knew she was there.

But that ship had sadly sailed, and so Eleanor did her best to not mourn its passing.

"Alright, I think you guys have heard enough of me talking for now. I know most of you probably thought you were done with this in high school, but it's time to break a bit of ice." The professor clapped her hands. "Turn to someone nearby. Get to know them a little bit, and be ready to share with the class one good fact about your classmate!

Her professor was right. She had thought she was done with this kind of thing. She'd always hated icebreakers, even if she understood in an abstract sort of way why teachers liked to break out with ice breakers in the first days of school. Some classes involved discussion and group work, so obviously you'd need to be able to talk to people.

For most people there was some value there. But for her, it was painful awkwardness eighty percent of the time or worse.

Thankfully it wasn't a guy next to her, at least. That lowered the odds of embarrassment somewhat.

Eleanor offered the girl next to her another smile. She looked to be of similar age to her, though she could've been fresh out of high school or maybe even a little older. The girl's (woman's?) somewhat preppy outfit of a striped blouse over a denim skirt wouldn't have been out of place at Eleanor's high school, and in fact would've immediately marked her out as someone for Eleanor to avoid. Her sandy blonde hair was somewhat past shoulder length, and held back with a green headband.

She regarded Eleanor the way one might regard a visitor from another planet. Guarded but curious, and more than slightly horrified.

Perhaps to prove to herself that she'd grown well past the high school cliques (hard to maintain when your coworkers are twenty years older than you), she broke the silence herself. "Hi. I'm Eleanor. Garcia. I'm from Almond Creek."

Her eyebrows quirked almost imperceptibly at her last name, but that was another thing that Eleanor was primed to look for. "Almond Creek?" The girl asked, taking the more obvious route of questioning. "I've never heard of that."

Eleanor could only chuckle nervously. "It's a bit north. And east. We, uh, do have our own high school at least. Kids from the next town over have to come to ours."

The girl grimaced, and Eleanor realized her fun little anecdote probably just made her hometown seem even more rinky dink than it really was.

"How about you?" Eleanor asked quickly.

"Hannah Johnson," the girl answered flatly. "San Francisco."

For Eleanor, the obvious follow-up question was 'What brought you here, then?' But considering that the answer was most likely 'I didn't get accepted to any of the awesome beachfront Bay Area schools,' and Eleanor preferred to minimize conflict in her life, she stashed that question away for now.

"Pick your major yet?"

Hannah rolled her eyes. "Nursing, but still gotta do these dumb GE's." She snorted. "When the hell am I going to have to write an essay in a hospital? So stupid." After a long moment of silence, she seemingly remembered that conversations involved two people. "How about you?"

Eleanor could only shrug and try not to feel too down on herself. "Not sure yet. Since I gotta get these GEs out of the way anyway… I've got a bit of time to think about it, I guess."

She'd been thinking about it since her sophomore year of high school, and she'd really been hoping her time off from school would have given her the time to give it a nice long ponder. A year later though, and she was still just as lost as she had been. Maybe more!

"Are you rooming on campus? I don't think I've seen you around."

Hannah flicked her wrist dismissively. "Apartment nearby. The dorm rooms are too expensive if you don't get affirmative action money."

Eleanor's experience in fast food kicked in, and she managed to keep a smile on her face despite how little she now wanted to talk to this person. She even threw in a slight chuckle to really sell it.

Hannah flicked her chin at Eleanor's laptop. "What was that picture?"

"Picture?"

"Your wallpaper."

Now she really had to fight to keep her smile steady. "Oh, that?" She squirmed. "That's uh…"

It had taken her forever to find a nice background that was exactly the right resolution; it seemed like her laptop had the least common screen size in the known universe, and she refused to let her wallpaper be stretched or zoomed and look gross. Not after she'd spent good money on this laptop. She'd trawled more sketchy looking anime wallpaper sites than she could count over the summer, braving her considerable fear of viruses in the process, and finally managed to stumble upon a gold mine of stuff in her resolution. Most of it was fanart for anime she didn't really know much about beyond a name or a character design, but there was one that caught her eye.

Well, to make a long story a bit shorter, it was Kagome and Inuyasha in a state of tender, romantic embrace.

It wasn't in an anime style though, but something a little more realistic and painterly. She'd thought that might help her hide in plain sight.

Alas.

"...just some art I found."

Apparently unsatisfied with this answer, Hannah reached across the desk and opened up Eleanor's laptop without even pretending to ask for permission. Inuyasha's flowing red robes and snowy hair greeted the world once again but fortunately, Kagome lacked her typical school uniform, and was instead wearing an old Japanese kimono. Hannah squinted at the screen. "Isn't this one of those… annie mays?"

Eleanor blanched, and seriously considered feigning ignorance. But she couldn't. "Uh, no," she half-mumbled. "It's called Inuyasha."

Hannah nodded in vague recognition. "I think I've seen that name on tv guide."

"It's pretty popular," Eleanor said, as if it were just an interesting factoid and not a defense of her own watching habits.

Hannah eyed her, adding a bit of scorn to the already existing mix of curiosity and horror.

There was a loud clap at the front of the room, and the conversations still happening gradually petered out. A girl on the far side of the room kept talking for a full five more seconds, but after she finally trailed off, there was silence. Professor Summer gave a brief mock applause. "I'm glad to hear some genuine conversations," she said warmly. "Last semester it was like pulling teeth to hear someone other than myself." She clapped her hands again. "So, how we're going to do this is you'll stand up with the person you talked to and take turns introducing each other to the class, then you'll sit down and we'll move to the next pair. Nice and simple." She pointed to the front row, and two students promptly rose to follow her instructions.

Eleanor tried to pay attention, but it was a lot of new names and new faces (or to be more accurate, the sides and backs of faces from her vantage point in the back row), so she quickly lost track of who was who. Most people just shared where their partner was from or what their major was, and Eleanor was a little relieved to hear plenty of "...and they're not sure what their major is yet."

At least she wasn't the odd one out in that regard.

Like a slowly encroaching bathroom mold, the metaphorical baton passed its way through the classroom, and Eleanor's partner was clearly bored out of her mind listening to it all if her tapping on the desk was any indication. When it finally made it to Eleanor and Hannah. Eleanor stood up first, taking special care to not accidentally push anything aside with her boobs. Hannah rose a second later, but it was obvious she thought the whole thing was stupid.

Eleanor tried to pretend like more of the class weren't tuning in for them than they had for the last several pairs. She gestured to Hannah. "This is Hannah Johnson. She's from San Francisco and she's going into nursing!"

Hannah didn't even bother to look personable to the rest of the class. She limply flicked a wrist in Eleanor's vague direction. "She's Eleanor Garcia. And she…" She stopped and visibly thought about it. "... she watches annie-may."

The mispronounced word leaving her partner's lips felt like a bomb going off in her ribcage, but Eleanor grinned and bore it. She sat down in a rush as soon as the teacher pointed at the next pair.

Eleanor spent the rest of the class alternating between deep despair and righteous fury. Who the hell did this chick think she was? Everyone else had picked the obvious stuff to share, but her bigot partner of course latched onto the thing that might cause her to get some grief.

And it's not like she'd ever been seriously bullied over it, even way back in middle school, but she already got enough snide comments as it was! If it wasn't her chest, it was her love of Hot Topic, and if it wasn't either of those, it was her being into "weird stuff". Which included anime, to most people's estimation.

'She could at least pronounce it correctly. This is an English class.'

By the time class finally ended, Eleanor was so deep in her spiral of despanger that she had long since stopped paying attention. She heard the professor talk about something at the student store before she heard the blissful words, "Until Tuesday!"

Eager to be literally anywhere else, Eleanor was out of her seat almost instantly. She cut past several of her classmates attempting to descend the tiers and raced for the door. She took the left exit, dodging the professor's surely disappointed gaze (Last to show up and first to leave? And so distracting!) and raced out of the Humanities building before anyone could corner her.

'I'll show up early next time and apologize. '

She was sure she'd bounced up a storm as she left, but she didn't care about that just then. Let them get an eyeful, she had places to be.

But since she didn't actually have another class for a while today and it was still a little too early to justify going to the cafeteria for lunch, she wasn't exactly sure what places those were. There wasn't much reason to hit up the student store just yet, since she still had a few more classes before the weekend and she might as well try to shop two birds with one stone. Which really only left her two options.

'Dorm? Or library?'

Her dorm was an attractive option, but it also harbored the considerable risk that was her intimidating roommate Simone. The library had the alternative risk of running into a whole bunch of other people, but it also lent her a certain anonymity, provided she could find a nice spot with a bit of privacy.

From the humanities building, both the library and the dorms were on the same path, so she had a bit of time to figure it out. Sadly, many more people were walking the campus by then than had been in the morning so she had to slow her pace to something much more balanced.

When she reached the quad, she decided she'd rather face the uncertain judgment of the library than the slightly less uncertain judgment of her dorm room, and so turned right to cross it. The quad was nice in part because its size allowed her to keep some distance between herself and any onlookers, but when she got to the library she had no such protection.

The bottom floor of the library building was in fact devoted mostly to classrooms, and the library proper began on the second floor and went up to the third. Which brought her to one of her many mortal enemies: stairs.

(Once, as an energetic child, she had made a game of sprinting up the stairs of a family friend's two story house, but those days were a distant dream to her. Biology had separated her from stairs, and now it was all she could do to preserve some mild sense of dignity any time she had to ascend them.)

She only had to pass one gaggle of slackjawed guys in gym clothes (one of whom at least seemed suddenly infatuated with the wall as she closed in) and a pair of middle aged women who made no bones about where it was they were staring before she made it to the stairwell. A white haired man in dress clothes was on his way down, and, after looking behind her, she saw that at least one other person was making for the stairs.

Sighing, she reached across her chest with her left hand and grabbed onto her right shoulder, pressing her boobs down in a vain attempt to hold them somewhat firm. She grabbed onto the railing with her right hand, and climbed the stairs carefully but quickly. Going up wasn't as bad as going down, but the movement could still be painful if she didn't hold herself down. And even with her arm where it was, the discomfort was still noticeable.

Not to mention it made her feel like a total joke.

She avoided the gaze of the old man as she passed him by, and recalled the words of a sorta friend she'd had back in junior year.

"You're gonna give some old geezer a heart attack one of these days."

So far, she'd kept manslaughter off her conscience, which was good because her conscience had plenty of other stuff to worry about.

The library area proper started with a large desk that everyone coming in would have to pass, behind which library staff was busy with whatever it is library staff did when they weren't rearranging books or checking them out for students. A woman who couldn't be more than 25 sat closest to the entrance, but Eleanor had already seen her the first time she toured the library, so her reaction was more muted than most.

Eleanor made a beeline for her.

A flicker of annoyance crossed the woman's face, but then she put on her best customer service smile. "Good morning! Can I help you with anything?"

"Hello," Eleanor replied. "I was just wondering about those study rooms? Do we have to reserve them? Or can we just walk in if they're free?"

The woman (whose nametag said "Linda" with "library assistant" beneath it) gave her a conspiratorial look. "Technically speaking, all use of the study rooms is by appointment." She looked around to the next nearest Library staff member and lowered her voice. "But it's the first day back, and I really doubt anyone needs them that badly. Go to 202. It's next to Philosophy."

Eleanor smiled widely enough that her lip briefly caught on her braces. "Thank you!" she half-whispered, lowering her voice similarly. "And, uh, I don't know the Dewey Decimal System super well. Can you point me to the… animals section? If you have that?"

Linda thought about it for no more than a second. "That's 590. Last section on this floor."

Eleanor bowed her head slightly. "I really appreciate it."

Then she was off to find 590 in the mysterious depths of the library, passing the glass doors that opened out into the computer lab, which took up about a quarter of the floor. As early as it was, it was already full of people making use of the boxy beige computers, while the actual library part of the library was comparatively empty. The shelves were all labeled, so it wasn't a particularly perilous journey to find the section she was looking for, but dodging people as well as their eyes kept her on her toes.

Once she'd found the 590s, it was only a matter of perusing the one shelf dedicated to it and finding something that looked like it would point her in the right direction. The space between shelves wasn't particularly wide, so it was physically a little awkward for Eleanor, but as long as she had it to herself it wasn't the end of the world.

It would always be obnoxious, of course, but she was pretty well used to working around herself.

Initially, she thought to look at reptiles specifically, but after taking out and flipping through a few of the reference books available, she realized doing it that way would be about as bad as looking for a drop of sweat in the ocean. She changed tack, and instead looked for anything about local wildlife. After about five minutes, she found something that looked promising. Flora and Fauna of the Central Valley.

Thick tome in hand, Eleanor left the confines of the shelves and went to where she remembered seeing the study rooms. Each study room had large windows facing the main library floor (probably to prevent adventurous college students from getting up to a different sort of extracurricular activity, Eleanor figured), which meant that she couldn't hide per se, but it would at least be a door and a wall between her and anyone else. And sometimes that's all she really wanted.

She only had to awkwardly dodge out of the way of one other library-goer (a mousy girl whose eyes went saucer-wide behind her glasses) before Eleanor found her study room.

The sound of the door closing was heavenly, and Eleanor released a long heavy sigh.

She fell into one of the chairs that surrounded the long table at the center of the study room. The far wall was devoted to a blackboard, upon which a note was written in pink chalk.

Have a wonderful year at Costello State!

Eleanor wasn't especially happy with her start so far, but seeing the note brought a smile to her face despite herself. It could've gone worse, she supposed.

So what if some people knew she liked anime? It wasn't the only thing she liked; she contained multitudes! And who cared if she'd been late one time? She was punctual! She'd be on time the rest of the year! Her teacher wouldn't even remember that by the end!

Properly psyched up, Eleanor flipped the book open with a little more energy than was strictly necessary. She flipped past the foreword and other legal publishing mumbo jumbo until she found what she was looking for; science may not have ever been her most favorite of subjects, but tables of contents had never once failed her.

Flora? Nope.

Fauna? Most certainly!

Reptiles? Perfect.

Once she was in the proper section, it took her not even ten minutes of flipping past photos of a wide variety of scaled critters she had no idea existed to discover that she was in fact a complete fraud.

Not only was there a wild lizard that lived in the Valley that happened to have bright blue on it, but it was one of the most common lizards in the whole state!

Two photos of a Western Fence Lizard stared up at her. From the top, it was your standard lizard-y color, that brownish greenish whatever tone. The second photo, however, showed the same lizard flipped onto its back, its legs flopping helplessly to its sides. Its belly was a blue so bright that it was shocking. The writing beneath the photos detailed the fact that the blue could vary widely in both the intensity of the color and in the amount of blue on the belly.

Well. Guess she didn't know the area nearly as well as she thought she did; where had that unearned sense of confidence even come from? It wasn't like she'd ever been a girl scout or anything, and her family only ever occasionally went camping along the coast.

For the next twenty minutes, she idly flicked around the book, enjoying the various photographs but taking special care to avoid the sections about the creepiest crawlies (especially spiders, ugh).

When she started getting bored, she flipped out her purple Razr and checked the time. It was barely past noon and her next class wasn't even until six.

It was so much time to kill that it made her a bit nervous. Instinctually, she felt like she was putting something off, which usually manifested in her as a consistent anxiety that she nevertheless refused to address by taking care of the problem.

…but it was only the first day of school. And she really wasn't putting anything off yet.

Eleanor shut the book and pushed it to the edge of the table, then grabbed her backpack and moved over to the other side so that she was facing the window. She removed her laptop, a specially marked thumb drive, and her earbuds from her backpack, and, after a bout of furious detangling of cords, she was ready to kill some serious time.

Courtesy of a friend she'd rather avoid thinking about, she had every episode of Bleach as of a year and a month ago. She'd been putting it off out of sheer negative association… but it really did look pretty cool, and there was quite some distance between them at this point anyway.

'As good a time as any,' she decided.

Before she knew it, it was time to get to class and gone were thoughts of lizards painted blue; in their place were wonderings of just how she could get her hands on a sword like Ichigo's.

She snorted as she shut her laptop and got ready to go. As if she could even swing it!

Spoiler: AN

It's my first original story, so hopefully it's not too wonky. Going from fanfic to original stuff is a pretty scary transition. She's an OC of mine I've gotten some art done for over the years; I have a cast of characters built around her, and hoping to write a half decent story for her.

Eleanor (and several of her eventual friends) are characters I've spent the last few years dreaming up ideas for. Initially, I wanted this to be a VN, then I wanted it to be an RPG Maker game, then I thought maybe a quest. As just one guy with few artistic talents, I sadly had to bow out of the RPG Maker game, and while I know people love quests, and that would probably do the best in terms of interaction, I just don't think I could handle the story going in a direction I wouldn't like.

If anyone would like to beta, I would appreciate it considerably. Please just let me know.

Next part will be up soon!